


Art for Loves Sake

by Boji



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-17
Updated: 2003-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-01 05:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/352621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boji/pseuds/Boji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Memories, art and Clark show Lex the road to his future. Seriously AU folks! Written for the 2nd Clexfest.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Art for Loves Sake

Disclaimer: They belong to DC Comics, The WB Television Network & the counter-cultural zeitgeist. Not mine, never will be. No infringement of any copyright is intended. Adrian Campbell-Black guest stars in the epilogue. He's not mine either, never will be. He belongs to Jilly Copper. No infringement of any copyright is intended. 

Further author's notes - See End: 

* * *

The noise was unceasing. Against a background drone of crackly radio rock and loud grating-grunted speech, hammers bashed into imported parquet flooring. Drills whirred like auditory tornadoes. Looking around the hallway of the mausoleum he laughingly called home, Lex shuddered. Dirt and dust had colonized, settling everywhere. Worse still, muddy bootprints lay etched in a zigzag pattern across his tiled floor. The staff had lost the battle and order had given way to chaos. 

He was cursed with builders. And if it wasn't builders, it was electricians, plumbers and security specialists. There was no longed for escape. Not here. And, not at the plant. There, Lex wove his way past repair workers and safety engineers. There, he looked at price quotes determined to bleed him dry. Steel girders had bent and twisted like a pretzel under the awesome power of nature. They would need to be replaced and God only knew how long that would take. Sections of the plant would be closed for months. Lex sighed tiredly, wanting desperately to shrug off the responsibilities that clung to him like a tight, badly- fitting plaster cast. 

The slight buzzing vibration of his cell phone against his upper thigh distracted Lex from thoughts of encroaching suffocation. Reaching into his pocket, he palmed the phone and pulled it out. It lay trembling in his hand, the number to his father's private line flashing on the small LCD display. Lex punched the power button switching his phone off, diverting his father's displeasure to his answering service. It wasn't as if the builders would deign to work any harder, or later. No matter what his father ordered from his sick bed. Breaks were breaks as far as builders were concerned. 

It reminded Lex of the grounds keeper at boarding school, Bones, or Bates or whatever his name had been, who'd stop everything mid-morning, no matter the weather, to dunk dry tasteless biscuits into mugs of strong tea. The grounds had always been green and lush though, plants flowering most of the year round. That old man had coaxed miracles from the ground with his fingertips. He was a polar opposite to the builders who definitely didn't deal in miracles and who probably wouldn't know beauty if it slapped them in the face. No one was an artist any longer, a craftsman or an artisan. Now people seemed to spend their days working just to fill in the time between breaks. All anyone cared for was the hefty bulk of their pay cheque. No one took pride in their work anymore. 

Sighing, Lex scratched the back of his neck and leaning against a door jamb, surveyed what used to be his office. The room, much like his long cherished hopes, lay littered by debris and devastation. Framed by the jagged holes in the stained glass window, a swarm of builders picked their way through rubble. His father had placed an order for a whole new window, refusing to let Lex get a quote for the extensive work that would have been needed to restore the original. That had held vibrant panes from Venice, blown with care by the finest glass craftsmen. No doubt the new window would be a modern, machine-made monstrosity signed by some fashionable con-man come artist. His father would write it off as tax deductible and wait while the thimble-sized fashionable set applauded his taste. And Lex? Lex would have to live with it. 

As he watched, two of the builders manoeuvred a large, cracked pane of coloured glass from out of its shattered frame. Cradling it carefully in heavily gloved hands they walked past him, their footsteps measured, slow and careful. Lex caught sight of his own reflection in the jagged piece of lilac glass. Image. That was all that had always mattered to his father. An image that was slowly devouring Lex, carving him from the inside out into the hollow shell his father wanted: the dutiful son and heir, the prince in waiting of the shadowlands. A ray of sunlight glanced off the coloured glass. Lex's faint reflection winked back at himself. 

Where had the cheeky practical-joker he had once been disappeared to? Where had the madcap science freak who exploded mini Molotov cocktails in the boys toilets gone? Probably the same no-place that his hedonistic clubbing self had vanished too. Not that Lex regretted shedding that skin, not really. He'd spent too many nights wasted, lying on bathroom floors that would never be clean, vomiting and retching while moans and avid, slurping, sucking sounds filled his ears. The few nights he'd spent on his knees in those same bathrooms hadn't been much better. 

Shaking himself out of the unpleasant memory, Lex let his gaze drift, sizing up the builders. It was irritating, disappointing, frustrating. Less the ingredients for an erotic fantasy and more a slice of sloth and ugliness. What was it with fat middle-aged builders who let their jeans ride low, showing their sweaty ass crack off to the world? 

Trapped by the drudgery of routine, restlessness itched hotly at the base of his spine. One near brush with death too many, had him craving the anonymous promise of sweat-filled night clubs. These days closing his eyes at night only guaranteed an action replay of a slow falling bookshelf. And pain. Skull crushing pain. Lex could still feel the slickness of his blood dripping warmly into his stinging eye, still hear his father's pleas. Restlessness clutched at him, promising freedom. All that stopped Lex from retracing the steps of self-destruction was his willpower. He clung to it by his fingertips, knowing that anonymity was always a broken promise. Pleasure always brief and transient. Worse still, freedom was a false God. 

"Sir?" Enrique's defeated tone turned him away from his naval gazing. 

Standing upright, Lex turned and stared at his butler. Enrique looked weary, dusty and defeated as if he'd lost one round too many in a boxing ring. 

"Would you be wanting lunch?" 

There was something in his tone that spelled out the state of the empty fridge to Lex. 

"No thank you Enrique. I'll have a beer and maybe a sandwich?" 

There was something about the chaos that called to his dormant college self. Then his staples had been pizza and later, sushi. 

"I'll be" Lex paused, looking at the mass of people, the wooden planks resting against the wall and the drill bits sitting in the midst of his antique desk. " upstairs. Have you finished checking the rest of the castle for damage?" Lex asked, moving towards the staircase. 

"Yes Sir. The structural engineer left for Metropolis an hour ago. He said he'd fax his report." 

"And no doubt forward my father a copy." "Sir, will you be wanting me to send the boxes to storage with the rest of the furniture?" 

"Boxes? What boxes?" Lex looked back over his shoulder at Enrique. 

"I believe the boxes in the turret room belong to you, Sir." 

Enrique's words propelled Lex up the stairs, past the second floor and up. Beer and the possibilities of food long forgotten. What boxes could Enrique possibly be talking about? 

* * *

It had been years since Lex had been up in this part of the castle. Dust mites partied on the stone steps under his feet as he left clear footprints amid earlier-made scuffed tracks. Kicking at the lingering dust, Lex cursed under his breath. He knew he couldn't really expect the staff to dust areas of the castle that were, for all intents and purposes, shut up. But it bothered him nonetheless. Or maybe it was the smell of stagnancy and frozen time that was irritating. The dust tickled his nose, threatening to spark a dry itch within his once asthmatic lungs. He'd never ordered the rooms in this wing aired out when he'd come home in exile. It had been better, easier, to move down to the lower floors. 

The stone stairs, narrowed, curved and twisted. He followed swiftly, his footfalls steady in memory of a younger self racing up the same stairs in sorrow and excitement. The twisting steps led to the turret tower, which had somehow always seemed out of place to Lex in this, his father's folly. Stepping onto a landing that was narrower than he remembered, Lex took two paces forward and stood in front of a tall, narrow, wooden door that dwarfed the wall it was set into. Dark and stained with age, it felt smooth against his palm. Turning the old iron handle, Lex pushed against the door, waiting for a click that didn't come. It was locked. With Enrique's efficiency, he thought to himself dryly, he should have expected nothing less. 

Just as Lex was wondering if he'd have to run back down, footsteps echoed up the stone walls of the stairwell. They announced Enrique's presence long before his head came into view. On the tray he was carrying, a set of keys lay by a chilled bottle of beer and a club sandwich. 

"Thank you." His tone dismissive, Lex took the tray from Enrique with a nod, and placed it on the floor near the door. 

He waited impassively as the other man turned and headed back down stairs. Lex was never entirely sure where the other man's allegiances lay, or if at the end of the day they were always going to be for sale to the highest bidder. His father. Suddenly nervous, and not wanting to think about the cell phone he'd switched off, that was burning a hole in his pocket, Lex picked the keys up off the tray and fumbled to slide the first into the lock. It fit but didn't turn. The third key he tried fit snugly and turned smoothly a loud click sounding against the stone walls. Pushing against the door gently, Lex felt it swing open, moving away from his fingers. 

Stepping into the circular tower room, Lex almost smiled at the involuntary bloom of warmth that spilled across his solar plexus. He stood just inside the doorway and looked around. Here, he'd sailed ships home and fought with cardboard swords. Here, he'd turned pages scented with dust and travelled to unknown worlds. Here, he'd lost himself in fables and history, gleaning strength and strategy from each word. The room had been a fort and a space ship, a castle and a war room from which he commanded toy troops. Bathed in a puddle of sunlight, it was just as he remembered. 

Well, at least it would have been if not for the boxes that cast shadows on the walls. They stood stacked around him, a city-scape in brown card, framed by a large window with its shutters flung wide. Undoubtedly, Enrique must have opened them earlier. Casting a careful glance at the boxes, Lex was thankful for the signs of long sealed packing tape. Whatever he'd be unearthing was untouched. Standing, Lex looked around him. A large bulky object stood with one corner resting against the curve of a wall. It was shrouded by a white dust sheet which fluttered slightly in the breeze. A momentary gust of wind and an old leather sofa revealed itself. 

Turning his attention back to the boxes, Lex reached out, hefting one down off its perch. The brown packing tape sealing it closed was frayed but still held strong. Digging in his pocket Lex pulled out his car keys. Flipping the straight Audi TT key out of its square black enclosure, he ran its jagged edge across the tape and sliced through into the secrets beneath. The harsh ripping sound was as loud as the pop the flaps made as he pulled open the box. Then, all Lex could hear was the sound of his breathing as he stared. 

Lying at the top of the box was a Tigers T-shirt. He'd pulled it off a rower from the Princeton crew. An almost dark haired, blue eyed rower who had whimpered and not moaned as he'd come in Lex's dextrous hands. He couldn't remember his name or his face, but Lex remembered the other boy had hogged the blankets that weekend. 

Photos. Cards. Letters. 

Lex rummaged in the box. Junk and memories. A mug, upon which was scrawled 'I love snogging'. He'd picked that up at a shop in Notting Hill when he'd headed for London one Spring Break. Snogged a couple of old school friends on a dance floor or two. He smiled remembered the awful sofa Oliver had put him up on. Two narrow and too lumpy. He'd lasted all of half an hour, then talked his way into Oliver's bed. Politely, Oliver had moved to the abandoned sofa. It had mattered terribly, then. Now, as Lex sifted fragments of his past through his fingers, all he felt was warmth at the memory. 

He reached out, picked up another box and dragging his car key through another length of tape, unsealed another part of his life. Once, still-precious moments of his life tumbled out with long forgotten fragments of his self and he remembered. 

When knuckles knocked softly against the door later that afternoon, they called Lex from the deluge of memory. Called him from the photographs that littered his lap and spilled across the floor. Lex sat among cards and papers clutching an old ripped sweatshirt. His heart leaden, he hadn't noticed that his eyes were brimming with unshed tears until he tried to take a breath. It was as shaky as his lip that he bit down upon, hard. Staring up at the ceiling, Lex focused on the point where it met the wall and swallowed hard. 

In a heartbeat, as he turned ready to face the intruder, all traces of weakness had been eradicated as if they had never been visible. It was Clark. Lex slowly exhaled and relaxed his stance before pulling himself up off the floor in a fluid motion. 

"Clark, what brings you over on a day like today?" Lex asked, throwing a few items haphazardly into a box and praying that his voice sounded even. The sweatshirt landed on the white dust sheet covering the sofa. 

"Er, I" Clark kicked awkwardly at the dusty floor. "I came to say I'm sorry." He spoke the words in a hurried gush before raising his gaze to meet Lex's. 

For a moment the depth of the blue gaze reminded Lex of another boy with dark hair and blue eyes and a warm easy smile. The boy-man who'd left him with nothing but a faded worn sweatshirt. Jason's scent, that had once imbued the faded grey material, was as faded as his longed for presence. Yet, standing in the same room as Clark, the scabbed cut no longer felt as deep. It was at that moment Lex realised that the long cherished pain had faded when he wasn't looking, lessening its grip on his heart. 

"I haven't been around much" Clark's voice was apologetic. 

"That's OK Clark. It's summer vacation." Lex shrugged, only half focused on the conversation unfolding in front of him. "I do remember what that's like vaguely." 

Reaching out Lex ran the car key across the top of another box ripping through the tape. "It's not as if I get six weeks to just goof off anymore." 

Hefting the box down off the pile, he cradled the heavy load in his arms. 

"Goof off?" Clark asked grinning at Lex's choice of words. 

"Piss about. Hang out. Loaf about. Stay out all night and sleep till two." Meeting Clark's eyes, Lex swallowed a smirk. 

He wasn't sure if it was to shake Clark up, or to jostle the image of himself that was settling over him like a shroud. Sometimes sounding his age was almost as freeing as acting his age. 

"Two?" Clark asked surprised, a wide grin illuminating his face as he imagined God knows what reason for Lex to be out all night and to be sleeping all day. 

The smirk won out over Lex's willpower. "Or later" 

No matter what Clark was imagining, chances were it was benign. He wasn't to know of the nights Lex had spent mapping curves and taut muscular pathways across Jason's body. Clark wasn't to know of later nights when he took everything and everyone in the hope of escaping the twists and turns of his own shattering heart. 

Fleetingly it occurred to Lex that Clark was even more beautiful then Jason had been. More so because Clark failed to see what it was about him that made him so luminous. The stray thought caught Lex off balance. He lost his grip on the box and it slipped, tilting in his embrace. It wares and secrets spilled forth, fluttering to the floor. Memories caught in pencil and charcoal. Jason smiled up at Lex. Forever young and vibrant on the page, his love written on his face, evident for whoever chose to look. His expression almost defiant, Lex raised his gaze and stared wordlessly at Clark. 

* * *

As the papers tumbled out of the box and fluttered to the floor, Clark felt the strange atmosphere in the room get, well, weirder. Not that things hadn't been weird since he'd arrived that afternoon. Usually, the great thing about hanging out with Lex was that nothing seemed to phase him. Yet, that afternoon he seemed jumpy. An image of Lex hanging upside down like a white, wingless bat flashed into Clark's mind. He'd have thought Lex was in trouble and yet, that wasn't the vibe. With a painful clench in his stomach, Clark realised that for the first time in his friendship with Lex, he felt as if he was intruding. 

That was the feeling that had been building from the moment he'd stepped over the tray, which blocked the half open doorway, and walked into the room. Not that Clark had realised it at first. It was bad enough that he'd had to use his powers to stop the beer he'd inadvertently kicked from spilling everywhere. Nervousness that Lex might have seen something had led to Clark's stammered apology. 

Not that he didn't feel bad that he'd been spending more time with Pete and Chloe lately. They were easier. It was easier to hide who he was becoming when he was with them. There was something about Lex's gaze that demanded honesty. Or maybe it was because his father was constantly implying his friend was a lying sack of shit, that Clark wanted his friendship to be built on truth. And ironically, he was sure that Lex did tell him the truth. Clark was the one who lied. Lex, Lex was the one who opened up, explained, struggled to share, well kind of. It wasn't as if Clark didn't know Lex was a master at avoiding a question. But he didn't lie, not like Clark did, with almost every breath and every move. 

Clark stood silently, rubbing his left foot against the back of his right calf. The slow movement helped distract him from the tension in the room. He looked down at the drawings and back up at Lex. Lex, who still hadn't said anything, and who hadn't moved. There was something almost unnatural about the stillness in Lex's pose, something about the way that he was staring at Clark that made Clark think of that deer in headlights expression people used in books. At that moment he realised Lex was waiting for him to say something but Clark had no idea what. 

At a loss he looked down again, staring at the drawings now covering the floor. There was beauty in every line drawn but the real power lay in the vibrancy that had somehow been captured on the page. The curls that rioted around the young man's head were so lifelike that Clark felt he could reach out and touch one, the eyes so piercing and liquid that despite being monochrome and pencilled he felt as if the man in the drawings was looking at him. Looking and really seeing him. Although the drawings were structural there was a softness, a blurring that spoke of thumbs smoothing across the page, or rubbing and drawing of calling the image forth from within the paper itself. 

He moved slowly, as if Lex was a skittish wounded animal. Clark crouched down and began gathering the diverse pages into a somewhat neat pile. He noticed the signature before he realised that most of the sketches and drawings were of the same man. In the top right hand corner a stylistic 'A' prefixed the three letters of his friend's name. 

"Alex?" Clark asked, raising his head to look at Lex. He stood immobile before him, his fists clenched at his sides. He looked as if he were heading for his execution. His face was tight with suppressed emotion. 

"Just ask me." Lex spat the words out, as if they tasted foul. 

Ask him? Clark looked down at the pictures and back at Lex. "Did, did you draw these?" His awe at the obvious skill and beauty was inherent in the breathy sound of his words. 

"Did I draw these?" Lex laughed. It was a broken sound. He moved sluggishly, surprising Clark with the sudden awkwardness of his movements. 

Lex was sure, decisive, elegant. Lex wasn't gawky or awkward and yet he sank down onto the sofa as if his legs wouldn't or couldn't hold him upright. Clark watched the dust sheet gather, pulling back off the arms of the sofa to reveal soft worn leather. Lex buried his head in his hands and ran his palms lightly across the curve and smoothness of his crown. 

"Yes I drew those. And many more." The last three words escaped softly as Lex exhaled. 

"I thought you were a science buff." It just didn't add up. Clark had never imagined Lex in light filled airy rooms standing behind an easel. 

"Mad scientist and geek, huh Clark?" Taking a deep breath Lex looked up, avoiding the penetrating pencilled gaze he'd captured in what seemed like another lifetime. "Da Vinci was both. Scientist and artist, inventor and innovator, creator and explorer. He believed that the foundations of art lay in scientific study. The beauty and power of his drawings draw on his study of corpses. He knew where muscles and tendons lay and what effect" 

"Lex, I don't need a history lesson on the guy who painted the Mona Lisa." 

"No, I suppose not." Lex paused as if he were waiting for Clark to ask him something, not that Clark could think for the life of him what Lex was expecting him to ask. And yet there was something about Lex's unease that resonated within Clark. Sometimes when he'd battled the latest monster of the week, like a hero on the WB, Lex would pin him with a look that demanded he spill his secrets. He never had, yet, but Clark imagined that his reflection at those moments would look a little like Lex's current expression. Desire mixed in with nervousness. And for once, Clark was sure Lex was nervous, he was rubbing his palms on his thighs. 

"There is the theory that it's a self portrait you know." Lex tossed the dry witticism into the room as if it would save him from the yawing silence. 

"What is?" Clark asked puzzled, knowing that the drawings resting on the floor between them looked nothing like Lex. 

"The Mona Lisa." 

"Oh." The eyes in the drawings called to Clark. "So you took art in college as well as all the science stuff?" 

"No, I abandoned my palette the summer after A-levels. That's graduation to you." The smirk and the armour were being shifted back in place. To Clark they were almost a slap in the face. 

"Why did you stop painting?" Clark knew he was fishing, struggling to hold on to a moment, a fleeting feeling that was trying to duck out of the room. 

"I lost my muse." 

Shifting, Lex moved fluidly, standing and crouching down to gather up his works of art. Clark watched the elegant fingers sifting the pieces of paper and waited for Lex to continue. Several moments later, fragments of his friend's life were offered in a hushed tone. 

"Jason went back-packing on his gap year. He drowned in a waterfall somewhere in South America." Looking up sharply Clark could see pain glinting like frozen tears in Lex's eyes. "The sick irony is that he was the best swimmer the school ever had." 

"He was your best friend." Clark nodded understanding where the pain came from. After all, if he lost Chloe or Pete. If he lost Lex The half formed thought pierced him, hurting more than the green meteor rocks ever could. And in that moment when he was trying to breathe around the raw wound, Lex spoke and changed everything, forever. 

"No Clark. He was my lover." 

* * *

The words hung in the air as Clark felt the ground shift beneath his feet. His Lover. Lex had had a lover who wasn't Victoria, who wasn't a woman. His gaze drifted down to the drawings of Jason and up slowly to Lex's mouth. Lex had kissed Jason, Lex had kissed and done god knows what with men. Clark waited for the awkwardness to hit him, waited for secret revulsion to clutch at him in his belly. Waited for indifference. Instead some invisible bands tightened around his heart. 

"Clark?" Lex's tone was patient, all traces of anguish wiped away thoroughly. 

"Yeah?" Clark asked, his voice sounding distant to his own ears, as if he was standing in a fog. He wondered if Jason was the only person Lex had ever drawn. If Lex only drew men. If Lex only drew his... lovers. 

"You okay?" 

The two unspoken words: 'with this' hung in the air. 

Clark looked up and for a moment saw what looked like worry, flash across Lex's eyes. "Yeah I'm fine." 

It was a lie. Worse still, he could see that Lex knew it was a lie. He wasn't okay, far from it, but he wasn't sure why. He stood there, awkwardness slithering across his skin, not knowing what to say or do. Lex had had a male lover. Lex had loved someone who had died. Both things were huge. Worse still, somehow both things made Clark feel every second of the six year age difference he had with Lex. 

Irrationally, he wondered what Chloe might have said if she'd been standing there. She probably would have gone on about the counter culture. Pete would have run off home and forever made snide comments about Lex and his, what was it again? Oh yes, sexual preferences. But he wasn't Pete and God knows if anyone knew how hard it was to be different to be on the outside looking in, it was Clark. Clark who had only barely been kissed while Lex had had lovers. 

"Did you only draw Jason?" The words spilled forth, Clark's mouth by-passing his brain. The strange name tasted bitter on his tongue as if the very syllables were made of something unpalatable. 

"No." 

Lex shook his head, placed the drawings on the sofa behind him and walking back over to the stacks of boxes began hefting them down off the pile. Clark noticed that they were labelled in a black markered scrawl. Lex was obviously looking for something. 

"I've got drawings of the whole gang from school somewhere. I've also got a painting done in oil. Jason and the snake." 

Lex had his back to Clark as he offered up that tidbit from his past and yet the smile that Clark was sure had flit across Lex's face was audible. The knot that seemed to have tied itself around his ribs, tightened. 

"You painted your b,boyfriend with a snake?" 

It was just a word. A stupid word. No reason for his stutter that matched the jagged thump of his heart. Well, okay so technically 'boyfriend' was two words stuck together. Two words he'd hoped to be to someone by now. Watching Lex slice open cardboard tubes and unroll canvases with agile fingers and delicate care, Clark realised he had no real idea what the word meant. Maybe that was why he'd never made a move towards Lana after Whitney had left. Maybe she didn't mean as much to him as he'd thought. Clark clamped down hard on that stray thought. Now was definitely not the time to think about it. Later, he'd think about it later. Now? Now he was here to listen to whatever Lex wanted to tell him. 

"There was a famous photo of Nastassia Kinski taken in the mid eighties. I believe it's by Avedon." 

Clark nodded, wondering who Avedon was. Lex continued. 

"She's lying nude on a bed with a snake curled around her. One of the older boys had the poster. It was legendary. Years later I changed the subject and borrowed from the pose and composition." Turning back to face Clark, Lex flashed a wicked grin of triumph. "It hung it over my bed while I was at college. I used to claim it was inspired by Michelangelo's 'Dying Slaves'." 

"Who's Nastassia Kinski?" Clark asked, no longer sure he could keep up with the twists and turns of the conversation. It was either that, or listen to Lex launch into another lecture about Renaissance artists that had, as far as Clark was concerned, very little to do with that afternoon's earth shaking revelations. 

"Actress. Might have been a model. She's got a python curled around her in that photo." 

Clark tried to picture Lana naked on a bed with a python sliding down between her breasts. It should have been easy, after all he had a clear image of her in that skimpy underwear she'd tried to peel off. Instead, he had a crazy image of Lex as a marble statue with a snake curled around his muscular thigh. His heart thumped and skidded. Had he just thought that Lex's thigh was muscular? Clark rewound the image, his mind marrying a vision of Lex together with the screen saver of Michaelangelo's David that Chloe had on one of the iMacs at the Torch. Lex pale and naked. Lex painting Jason with a snake. Clark closed his eyes shut tightly for a moment as his brain threatened to imagine just what the snake might have been coiled around. 

"Milto had a snake as a pet. I lent him my first car for the whole of one term in return for ten days with that snake." Lex snorted. "He got smashed one night drove the car into a tree and puked all over the upholstery. The car was a write off." 

"Milto?" Clark asked automatically, barely listening as Lex shared what Clark knew were valuable nuggets about his life. 

Lex had had good friends. Lex had had a boy named Jason as a lover. Clark stuffed his shaking hand into his jeans pocket. Taking a deep breath he tried exhaling slowly. The rolling wave of emotion that was crushing his rib cage increased its pressure. 'Anger' The word flashed into his mind. He was feeling anger. 

"Good friend, currently stranded in Greece. I'm not the only one with family obligations." 

With a muted 'Ah-hah' of triumph Lex pulled a sketch pad from some box or another and made him way back over to where Clark was still standing. Raising an eyebrow, he motioned to the dust-sheet covered sofa and stalked over. Sitting down he balanced the sketchpad on his crossed his legs and motioned to Clark. 

Two steps brought him to Lex's side. He sat down and waited as Lex flipped open the cover and flicked past the first few pages. Those were filled with small sketches, lines and half finished designs. Some ten or twelve pages in faces began to appear like snapshots in a photo album. It wasn't that Clark had thought Lex had hatched out of the torn roof of his Porsche when he'd pulled him from a watery would be grave. The whole incident with Club Zero, together with Victoria's insidious presence had shown Clark that Lex had had a life before coming to Smallville. A life yes, but Clark had never realised that Lex had been loved. That Lex had had friends. Best friends. Before Clark. The thought sat in his churning stomach like a meteor rock. 

Clark knew it shouldn't matter. Knew that, as his Mom said friends were life's riches and that you could never be blessed with too many. Yet, staring down at the faces, smiles and goofy expressions that Lex had captured so deftly he felt jealous. Clark scratched at his thumb cuticle. Was he jealous that other people had been important to Lex? The odd almost sick feeling in his gut throbbed at the thought. He'd never expected to feel jealous. Never expected that it would matter to him if Lex had other friends. He'd loathed Victoria because she deserved it, hadn't he? Because she'd used and hurt Lex. Which didn't explain why he felt so vulnerable now. After all Lex wasn't jealous of his friendship with Chloe and Pete, was he? 

Clark couldn't remember seeing Lex ever look jealous. The one time Lex had looked desolate, that was the word, he'd been standing in his fathers loose embrace. Clark had looked up from the warmth and security of his parents hug and seen the pain on his friends face. By the time he'd blinked the rain out of his eyes, the expression had vanished as if washed away. Thinking back, Clark remembered other fleeting moments at the Talon, when he left with Chloe or Pete. Lex had looked, flat somehow. Maybe that was what happened as you grew up. Maybe you learned to show less. But maybe you still felt the same. Maybe 

Clark looked over at Lex and watched long, pale elegant fingers leaf through a sketch pad. He leaned in closer and watched. 

* * *

As Lex flipped open the sketch book and stared at the smiling or sulking faces that gazed out at him, he wondered why he'd ever given up drawing. This was proof that once, for a few scant years, he'd had a life outside of the sphere of 'daddy dearest's' influence. That he had friends even if they were scattered to the four corners of the earth. People he laughed and cried with. People he'd had a punch up with. People he'd kissed. Friends who'd kept his secrets. Not that he and Jason had been that open. Privacy had been a valued and scarce commodity at boarding school. 

And then there'd been the irony that the first boy he'd ever loved had been more scared of his strict Argentinean father than Lex was of his own. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Lex watched as Clark turned the pages slowly looking down into smiling faces and moments captured in pencil and pen and ink. At least he was still here. At least he hadn't fled. Hadn't been revolted. Clark stopped on one and just looked. Lex looked down at what had captured his friend's attention saw himself drawn in the middle of a huddle. Joy and laughter spilled out of his face so openly it was almost painful to remember. 

"You're good." Clark said in almost hushed tones. 

Staring down at his younger self, Lex remembered why he'd boxed these up. They brought back memories of laughter and warm beer, of aching muscles and football matches, of mud and rain and grey days. And this drawing brought back memories of his father's rages. Of sellotaping photos with trembling fingers. Of drawing in silence, of shaking with unshed words and tears. 

"Thank you. I used to be." 

Lex tried to think back, when was the last time he'd felt joy? Relief, he was on a first name basis with, as with frustration and boredom and patience and fury and a whole host of other negative emotions that boiled in his gut. Those he longed to spew verbally at his father. 

"You probably still are." Clark said gently. "Good, I mean. Lex you're you and you're good at stuff. Really good at stuff!" 

"Stuff?" Lex briefly raised an eyebrow. 

The feelings in the room were too heavy for levity, too painful and precious for Lex to pervert them with innuendo. And anyway, it was a relief to share something that was so very much his own with Clark. A way to say thank you for his second chance, for snatching his life from the river bed. He'd shared everything with Jason, unlike the other boy he was coming very close to loving. 

"Yeah, stuff. You know business and money making schemes. The Talon and pool and" 

"Driving?" Lex smirked at Clark. 

The warm smile that came back at him kicked him in the solar plexus. There was no close about it. Lex laughed mentally at the evasions thrown up by his own mind. It was a rough dirty sound that ached to spill out into the open. He'd probably loved Clark from the moment he'd open his eyes and coughed up a gallon of the river's water together with half his lung. His heart knew he'd been saved and just like that Ancient Japanese saying, it knew that he wanted to belong to his saviour. There had always been little chance of that. Now there was undoubtedly less. He wondered if he could work out the odds in averages and percentages. He wondered if it would hurt less when Clark stopped dropping by. And he would. Lex was sure of it. He hadn't fled today but sooner or later Clark would realise that Lex looked at him. Really looked. Slow long, lingering, glances he couldn't curtail. They were beyond his control as were the snatched fleeting touches he allowed himself, usually while bruised and trussed up like a turkey. 

The brush of Clark's hand against his pulled Lex out of the gloomy tumble of his thoughts. He swallowed, trying to still the treacherous fluttering in his lower abdomen. Clark nudged Lex's hand away from the sketch pad and turned the next couple of pages. Their hands rested against each other atop the sketchpad. Lex forced his fingers to be still and tried not to think about caressing the back of Clark's hand. 

"Picasso once said," Lex's voice cracked. He swallowed and continued "or wrote, that painting is just another way of keeping a diary." 

"And you don't keep a diary any more?" Clark asked turning to look at Lex. 

"Tiled mosaics were never my idea of art." Lex said dryly almost shuddering as he pushed the memory of a certain men's room floor from his mind. 

"So you don't ever draw, anymore I mean?" Clark asked, probing gently. Lex wondered what he was fishing for. 

"No, not really. The odd doodle but real drawing or sketching? I'm not even sure I remember how." The words were dismissive but Lex could feel his fingers itch to pick up a pencil or to hold charcoal coating his manicured fingers in the black compacted soot. "Then again it may be just another bike to be ridden." 

Clark was once again leafing through the sheaves of paper that held what was left of his love for Jason. Maybe that was why Lex suggested it. Or maybe it was his gambling streak craving for a fix. 

"If you wanted to find out if I still have an artistic streak to flex you could always help me." 

"Help you?" Clark's eyes were very blue and very round. 

Lex's heart was beating so loudly in the small cylindrical space that he was sure Clark could hear it. "Clark, still lives were never my thing. It's been a long time since I had anything worth recording in my diary." "So you wanna draw me?" A blinding bright smile was the backdrop to the question. 

"God yes." His exclamation was a gunshot in the quiet of the turret room. "I want to draw you." Lex breathed the words fervently. "Paint you too if you'd let me." 

"Like you painted Jason?" 

Clark spoke almost timidly but his words still raced, sparking across Lex's imagination. God how he wanted to paint Clark spread out just for him. Skin glowing in candlelight. Sunlight catching in his hair. Shadows dancing on a curve of a bicep. The desire to paint Clark, to capture his physical beauty, was almost overwhelming. Maybe then the secrets between them that threatened to throttle their friendship wouldn't hurt so. 

Paint Clark, like he'd painted Jason. 

"You mean nude?" Wondering how quickly he could get hold of a snake, Lex barely noticed the crack in his voice. 

Like he'd painted Jason. Lex tried not to think about the paint smeared sheets that they'd made love on, tried not to think of how he'd painted his lover with words and touches and with his tongue. 

"Model's pose nude in art class don't they?" Clark asked sounding tentative. Lex watched as Clark gnawed on his thumb cuticle reflexively. 

"Life class," Lex nodded, having to actually concentrate on breathing. Clark's thumb was now framed between the boys full lips. "Yes, all the time." 

"OK then." 

"OK?!" The word shot from Lex's mouth, a bullet of incredulity. 

"I'll pose for you" Clark swallowed "And we can try the nude thing, right? I mean if I'm uncomfortable" 

"We won't do anything you're not comfortable with." Lex meant every soft spoken syllable. 

Clarks' continuing friendship and trust were not something he'd gamble with. Not for momentary pleasure. Not ever. 

* * *

Was it written on his forehead? Did it show? Clark stared at his bleary-eyed reflection and grinned, amused at his own dumb ass idea. Then again this was Smallville, and knowing his sucky luck, the words 'nude today' would appear in the middle of his forehead during breakfast. No doubt they'd glow meteor green and be centered beneath the annoying of lock of hair that always ended up falling into his eyes. 

Naked. 

As Lex had joked, Clark was going to be 'stark, bollock naked'. Naked. Nude. And in front of Lex. Lex who was so cool and poised and old-fashioned words like elegant and debonair came to mind, quoted in Chloe's voice. Lex who was never phased. That thought stopped Clark's mental rambling. It wasn't true. He'd been phased yesterday. Yesterday Lex hadn't only been not cool, he'd been painfully awkward. 

It should have helped. It didn't. 

God how was he going to get through this without being uncomfortable? And why on God's green earth had he said yes. A nervous giggle welled up inside Clark. Maybe it was an alien thing. Maybe he was developing an exhibitionist streak to go along with super speed and x-ray vision. Maybe on his Maybe where ever he came from people didn't wear clothes at all. Clark grinned momentarily before the nerves fluttering in his stomach dowsed his sense of humour. He wondered if the feeling was similar to indigestion. He wondered if he shouldn't skip breakfast. If he did that though Lex would list the contents of the castle's kitchen as if his home had room service menu and that would be even more embarrassing. As if the whole nudity thing wasn't going to be embarrassing enough. The words he'd stammered two days earlier reverberated in Clark's mind. If he was uncomfortable. 

If 

Why had he said yes? 

He wanted Lex to see him. That was the truth that sat heavily somewhere between his heart and his stomach. He wanted Lex to see him, see who he was, who he was becoming, and still be his best friend. That was why he'd said yes. That was why he was standing in front of his cupboard, the door ajar, his reflection staring back at him. It had nothing to do with all the other drawings and sketches of Lex's friends. He thought the word in a scathing tone and winced. Clark rubbed his left foot against his right calf nervously. Objective. He had to be objective, it was no use thinking about how he'd never measure up to Lex's other models. He clamped down on the stray name starting with 'J' that threatened to dance through his mind, took a deep breath and tried to see himself through someone else's eyes. Lex. 

How did Lex see him? 

Okay, so he was tall. And doing all the farm chores every morning at superspeed had helped broaden his shoulders. But it didn't mean that he'd look good nude did it? He'd just be tall and geeky, with broad shoulders. And anyway, shirtless was a far cry from getting naked and if he couldn't get naked on his own in front of the mirror 

Clark took a deep breath and yanked down his boxer shorts. They puddled around his ankles and he made no effort to step out of them. It should have been just like dressing or undressing on any other day, or at the very least it should have been like stepping into the shower. He was naked then too. On any other, normal day though he wasn't standing in front of the mirror looking at his nudity. Embarrassment itched up the back of his neck. All he could see was an awkward boy. Awkward and blushing. 

His cock lay limply between his legs, barely peeking out from beneath the thatch of black hair that spiralled it's way up onto his lower belly. He turned in front of the mirror to looking back over his shoulder at his back, bare legs and his butt. Taking a deep breath, Clark tilted his head a little, closed his eyes slightly and tried to see himself as a work of art. 

"Clark, breakfast!" his mother's voice startled him and at superspeed he yanked his boxers up, looking skittishly in the direction of his bedroom door. It was still closed. Thank God! He so didn't want to get caught naked and checking himself out by his mom. 

Would she know? would his Mom be able to tell that he was going nude today? Clark grabbed the jeans he'd flung onto the floor the night before, pulling them on quickly. Blindly he reached into the cupboard for a t-shirt. Stuffing his feet into sneakers Clark then raced down to breakfast. 

As he slid into the kitchen chair, it almost overbalanced as his superspeed argued with gravity and balance. 

"You're in a hurry," his father remarked, folding back the front page of the newspaper. "Chores done?" he asked, taking the food laden plate his wife was holding out to him. 

"Yeah, I finished them early, and yes Dad I am in kind of a hurry." 

"So what are you planning to do today" his mother asked, staring at him pointedly as he heaped a small stack of pancakes onto his plate. 

Clark shrugged, "Don't know. Thought I might go over to Lex's." He heard his father snort softly and plunged on regardless "I, er he's kind of moving some stuff and I said I'd help." 

"Clark" He could hear the thinning of his fathers' patience in his voice. 

"Dad, I know what you think Lex, but he's my friend." A wave of emotion spilled forth, carried by the last word. "My best friend." And he was, no matter what position in the friendship queue Clark had been relegated to by Lex's history. 

"Moving?" Jonathan Kent's eyebrow rose slightly over the brim of his coffee mug. 

"Boxes. Stuff from university." Clark bit into the soft cooked dough and swallowed rather than chewing and swallowing. "He's got builders so" Clark shrugged hoping that his parents would leave it. 

"Be back for lunch." His mother said firmly, as she got up from the table and began to carry the dirty dishes over to the sink. 

Half eaten pancake in hand, Clark stood, moved to kiss his mother on the cheek and dashed out of the house. He ran full speed through the corn fields, barely feeling the sting of the stalks against his face and bare arms. Today, maybe Lex would really see him. Today, maybe the secrets he thrust between them could stop fermenting. Even if he didn't, couldn't find a way to share his secret. 

Before he knew it, Clark was climbing the twisting dusty steps, heading for the turret room. He counted the stairs off in his head, thankful with every step he climbed that there was serious distance between the tower room and the rest of the castle. Up here there was probably no chance that anyone would catch him naked. 

He gulped and pushed open the door that stood ajar. Expecting to have to step around boxes, Clark stepped into a circular puddle of sunlight. With the turret window thrown open and the room cleared of everything but the old leather couch and a few scatter cushions it seemed as if he'd stepped into a different reality. It seemed as if the wooden floor gleamed and even the walls shone whiter. 

"Morning Clark." Lex's greeting was low voiced and calm. 

Turning around he saw his friend standing in the door way a steaming mug of fragrant coffee in one hand and a large sketch pad under his other arm. Lex dropped it on the floor with a dull thud and sank gracefully into a cross-legged pose. It was then Clark noticed that Lex was wearing faded, frayed stone washed jeans. Lex had jeans? Well-worn, normal blue jeans? 

"Lex, you look..." Clark paused wondering how to make his next point without sounding offensive. 

"Awake?" Lex asked smiling. 

"No. I knew you'd be awake. Alert." 

"I'm cursed by builders. They begin destroying my ear drums at six thirty every morning. Anyway, the light's good up here this time of day." Lex took another sip of coffee, walked over to the couch and grabbed two cushions. 

Clark watched as Lex flung them onto the floor in the centre of the room, put them coffee mug down next to them and walked back to retrieve the sketch pad. He sat cross-legged, produced a stick of charcoal from somewhere, examined it carefully and then suddenly hopped up heading for the door. He looked back at Clark over his shoulder:"Make yourself comfortable, I left a kimono robe for you on the back of the sofa. I'll be back in a minute." 

The door swung shut leaving Clark alone with his thumping heartbeat. He closed his eyes and swallowed. Fair's fair. He had agreed. He shucked his clothes and shoes with super speed and stopped, his thumbs caught on the elastic waist of his boxer shorts. Nude. The agreement had been nude. It wasn't a big deal, after all Lex said artists painted nudes all the time. The shorts once again puddled around his ankles and he dived into the robe clutching it around himself. 

God Lex would think he was a wuss. After all he'd taken showers in the locker room, he'd gone skinny dipping with Pete once. This should have been the same. The silk material slid smoothly across his muscular hairy thigh served as a reminder of how different this was. He tried not to notice how good the silk felt against his skin. Tried not to wonder if it was Lex's robe. Tried not to think if it was new or of someone else had worn it. 

The traitorous fluttering that had lingered throughout breakfast, intensified. Clark felt much like he did when they had a pop quiz at school. He folded his arms around his middle and tried to breathe. If only Lex would hurry back. Then he wouldn't have to think about what he was about to do. It would just happen, like fighting a mutant of the week or falling into a kiss. 

Not that he had that much experience with the whole kissing thing, Clark thought to himself ruefully. The nightmare that was Tina and the whole deal with Chloe that was getting increasingly awkward. And just to compare and make him feel like more of a loser, his best friend had probably been kissed with tongue by the time he was nearly sixteen. An image of Jason's art-immortalised face flashed into Clark's mind, he pushed it aside and swallowed around his dry mouth. 

What was taking Lex so long? 

* * *

Until he'd walked into the turret room that morning, Lex hadn't truly realised that Clark's stubborn streak rivalled his own. That was the only explanation for the defiant look on the boy's face as he turned up that morning. Lex would have bet on Clark chickening out and bailing. And yet he'd ordered Enrique to move the boxes. Maybe it was just that he'd missed this The quiet. The space. The heavy crinkle of a sketch pad sheet of paper. The comforting feel of a pen or a thin strip of charcoal in his fingers. That was why he'd suggested this ludicrous exercise in whatever this was. 

Lex carefully opened the door to the turret room and, with a deft ankle move kicked it closed behind him. His hands were full, cradling his pen and ink supplies. He'd known the moment he'd seen Clark's cheekbones, highlit by soft sunshine, that he'd want to transmute the sketches into oil. Pen and ink made that easier. At least it used to. Lex was busy lamenting the fact that he'd let his talent lapse when he noticed Clark. 

He was sitting on the very edge of the sofa, his back ramrod straight, the kimono clutched closed around him with tightly folded arms. The boys skittish body language told Lex everything he didn't want to know. It was over before it had even begun. Disappointment rose swiftly almost choking Lex. He exhaled slowly, trying to push the feeling aside. It occurred to Lex that if Clark clutched any tighter he'd probably would bruise a rib. 

"We don't have to do this you know." Lex said, putting the ink bottle down on the ground. 

He rubbed his hand over the base of his skull in a nervous motion and began to restructure his day in his head. It was early, he could see if the Japanese stock market had decided to take an upturn. He could 

"I want to." Clark's voice, laden with teen bravado, sliced into Lex's racing, rambling thoughts. "Its just" 

Clark paused, swallowed and shrugged the robe off his shoulders. It puddled around his hips and into his lap. 

"Locker room showering doesn't count and a,apart from my mom no one's seen me naked." 

As creamy muscular skin, worthy of photographic homage by Weber or Ritts, spilled forth Lex wondered if the football team hadn't just been ogling Clark. In their place, he would have been trying to find ways to cop a feel. 

"Clark, I won't be looking at you because you're naked," Lex said firmly, trying to mean it. "I'll be looking at the shapes your body will make in the light. Shapes, light and shadow. That's where art comes from," Lex swallowed, thankful for his poker face. 

Clark nodded, bowing his head slightly hiding behind unruly lock of hair his mother loved. "Where do you want me?" 

Clark's question almost made Lex groan. Innuendo, even in his own mind, wasn't what he needed right now. 

"On the sofa, however you're comfortable." 

Sinking back down onto the floor Lex busied himself with the ink bottle and his two pens. He tried to keep his eyes firmly on the sketch pad and the black ink shimmering in the bottle. 

On the sofa, the boy whose image he had barred from his dreams, twisted and wriggled trying to get comfortable. The dust sheet that Lex had shook out the window, then personally stuffed in, and later pulled out of the washing machine, bunched down sliding off the leather sofa. It twisted around Clark's right thigh like a crumpled sweat soaked bedsheet. 

"Clark, you need to relax you know," Lex said, matter of factly. 

Clark shifted restlessly on the sofa, one leg bent slightly against the arm rest, one arm folded under his head. Tension was spreading across his body in a fiery blush. 

"That's easy for you to say," Clark shifted again. "You're not the one lying here..." 

"Butt naked?" Lex's words slid effortlessly into the awkward silence. He shifted again and heard Lex sigh with exasperation. 

"Er is this okay?" Clark asked tentatively, trying to relax into his current position. 

"Can you hold that pose for the rest of the morning and the next few weeks?" Lex asked. 

"Weeks?" Clark sounded surprised and Lex wondered if he'd forgotten to mention that portraits took more than a couple of sittings. 

"Yes. Weeks. Is that going to be a problem Clark?" Lex asked positive that it would be. 

Positive that this would be a one time thing. Positive that if he focused too hard on how the twisted rope of bedsheet accentuated the muscular tone of Clark's thigh that his next out breath would be a groan. It didn't help that Clark was still wriggling. Nor that the dust sheet was sliding across Clark's ass. It was a perfect, dusky peach. A muscular hand full just ripe for 

Lex clamped down on the thought roughly, glad that the large sketchbook was covering his suddenly tight denimed crotch. His mouth was parched. He'd have to run downstairs and get several bottles of water. Later. Drawing. That was the answer, just drawing. Half an hour later Lex was lost in the strokes of the pen, the quiet rhythmic scratching noises against the sketch pad and the shadow cast by a corner of the sheet onto Clark's left shoulder blade. Time crawled, moving to the pace of his pen strokes. 

Clark, exhausted by the tension that had been choking him all morning found himself dosing. Lex sketched and enjoyed the silence. 

By the time Lex woke the sleepy boy, nudging him lightly, the sun was high in the sky, and the shadows had shifted. He hated to stop but he was stiff from crouching on the floor and the niggling worry about the plant, reports and paper work was enough to rob him of his concentration. 

"Clark? Clark?" Lex shook his friend more firmly and smiled down as a sleepy eye opened to look at him. "You look like a cat." 

"Hmm?" Clark asked stretching out, his feet poking out over the end of the sofa. 

"A large cat lazing in the sun." Lex smiled and stood back, one hand in his pocket. "I have to get back to work. Can you make your own way home?" 

"Hmm, yeah. Lex did you mean weeks?" 

"Yes Clark I did." 

"So all summer?" Clark asked yawning. 

All summer was a nice thought but Lex was sure the gift of Clark's time wouldn't extend far past that one morning. 

To Lex's surprise, the next morning, at the same ungodly hour, Clark was standing in front of him, kicking off shoes. Lex watched as Clark peeled off his socks while balancing awkwardly on one leg and then thrust both his jeans and his underpants off in one swift movement. He got a brief glimpse of a soft pretty looking cock complete with foreskin and a nice pair of link balls, before Clark dived onto the sofa and pulled the dust sheet around him. 

"You going to tell me I should have painted you at night?" Lex grinned, not answering the question and trying to remember what he'd done in the mornings before he'd discovered the bitter joy of filter coffee. 

"Would you have?" Clark asked. 

"Maybe. Some painters have models for day and others for night.""What about you?" The question was tentative. Clark scratched the side of his thigh nervously. 

"Don't know. Didn't give my art enough time to develop and buried it after school. Shouldn't have given my father the satisfaction." 

The bottle of ink was uncapped and the sound of the pen clinking against the glass container heralded the start of the session. 

Four mornings later, they'd settled into a pattern. Lex exiled his cell phone, and found a portable CD player in one of the boxes. He drew to the strains of jazz, a mug of coffee by his side, a plate of biscuits and cake on the floor between them. For those three to four hours before eleven a.m. nothing existed but the music and the spark that was igniting somewhere between Lex's busy fingers and the heavy white page. Sometimes they talked of art and artists, of writers and cities in Europe and museums, or rather Lex talked and Clark listened. But mostly they were silent together. Silent, safe and comfortable. 

That morning Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue wafted across the room. Clark lay comfortably in his chosen pose, his head resting on his folded arms, his hair spilling across the soft worn leather of the sofa cushion. He wriggled his feet in time to the music and swallowed half a cookie together with a yawn. 

"Sorry." Clark said with a shrug. 

"Thought you normally got up when the sane half of the world is heading for bed." 

"Nope. Am getting up earlier to do chores before getting here. Dad would have a freak out otherwise." 

Lex put the pen down and sighed. "Clark. You know that you're my friend and as such you don't owe me anything? Right?" he prompted. 

Clark nodded and wolfed a piece of marble cake. 

"I mean if this is too much for you, if you want to go hang out with Chloe or Pete" 

"No!" Lex watched Clark almost choke in his haste to swallow. "No. I want this. I want to be here, too hang out and stuff. I want to be with you." 

The words were awkward, painfully bittersweet and spoken with such intensity and at such cross purposes that they almost choked Lex. 

"Clark I want to be with you too." Lex spoke softly and bent his head back to the sketch pad. 

At least when Clark got bored and left he'd have these moments, captured and cradled by his own hands. He looked up in time to see a blinding smile. A warmth settled in his chest and it took Lex a moment to realise that he was feeling joy. Real, pure joy and affection. If he was lucky it would be a little while before it faded. If he hadn't used up his luck the first day he'd met Clark on the icy river bank. If he was lucky it would be a little while before lost his heart irrevocably, unrequitedly, and was left once again with nothing but a pile of sketches. 

Lex sighed deeply, wondering if he would have mourned Jason more if they'd never been lovers. He found himself gazing at Clark who was dozing peacefully once again. The urge to touch him, to run his fingers through the thick black hair and taste those soft pink lips was almost more than Lex could bear. His thumb traced the pencil lips on the paper in front of him. The familiar aching throb of a trapped erection kept him company as he sketched. God how he wanted to be with Clark. 

More than that though, Lex wanted the trust that his friend showed, in being able to sleep so easily in his presence, to clear away the half truths and shadows that lay between them. He wanted that more sharply than any touch, and any kiss. And like the warmth of Clark's mouth and the soft press of his lips, Lex knew that total honesty was also hoped for in vain. 

It was enough that they were friends. It was enough that Clark arrived each morning. It was enough. It had to be. 

* * *

Clark's legs were still shaking as he walked blindly into the Talon. For once he didn't notice the multicoloured chairs, the flowers or the pretty once girl of his dreams who was carrying two hot chocolates in his direction. Chocolate. He needed chocolate. Lots of it. Together with alcohol. Clark squashed that thought as soon as it fluttered across his mind. On its heels came an image of Lex's graceful hand tilting a cut glass tumbler to his lips; of honey coloured liquid sliding into his friend's mouth, the glass then dangling in Lex's limply relaxed hand. 

Lana placed the cups down on the next table with a clink, and smiled at Clark. He nodded absently. Lex had placed the tumbler down on the wooden floor with a similar clinking sound, before lying back on the sofa. The fluttering in Clark's stomach was back, exploding like pop rocks did on his tongue. The very pop rocks that he'd gone back to the turret room for. The stupid packet-candy that he should have just left for Lex. If he'd just left well enough alone he wouldn't have seen Lex. 

Oh God he'd seen Lex. Nude. Well okay nearly nude. After all the pale grey t-shirt had been pulled up and Clark had stood there as the harsh sound of the zipper being undone had ripped through the turret room. Then Lex had moved his right leg, placed his foot on the floor and lifting his hips had shimmied slightly. The jeans were yanked down and Lex was there, lying on the same sofa Clark had lain on for nearly two weeks now. Lying there in the midday sun with his thighs spread slightly apart, touching himself. Clark swallowed and his knees gave way. He gripped a velvet armrest a little too strongly and collapsed into a bucket armchair. 

He'd seen Lex's penis. Lex's cock. Lex's cock sliding in and out of Lex's fist. He'd seen his best friend lick his index and third finger and trace a teasing line up the throbbing vein on the underside of the curved cock. And he'd gotten hard. 

Struggling to control himself Clark had fled, barely remembering to run out of the castle at normal speeds. 

Lex had lain down upon the same sheet he had. Lex had started to jack off lying in the very spot Clark had been lying in ,not twenty minutes earlier. Lex was probably still lying in the same position, on the same sofa fisting himself. The words reverberated loudly inside Clark's mind. He groaned quietly as the remembered images caused his dick to twitch and swell slightly. God he shouldn't have come to the Talon. Shouldn't have gone home. Should have gone somewhere and just 

The urge to find a quiet spot and unzip his jeans was nearly over powering. And that in itself was terrifying. He'd seen Lex jack off and now, all he wanted 

Oh God, all he wanted were Lex's hands. On him, stroking and massaging his dick, rubbing and kneading the way Clark had seen Lex rub and knead the charcoal sketch he'd been working on for the past three days. The one that was almost lifesize, the heavy paper masking taped to the floor, Lex crouching over it as if he were building something. Lex had made some joke about brass rubbings and veneration and at the time Clark had thought to ask Chloe to research what he meant and now all he could think about were Lex's hands and rubbing. 

"Clark!" 

Chloe's enthused tones were the last thing Clark needed. Overloaded in his disorientated state, he looked up at his blonde bubbly friend and saw her bright smile as she plopped herself down opposite him on the sofa. 

"Chloe." 

Chloe. God how was he going to talk to Chloe with a hard on trapped in his jeans and visions of naked Lex in his head. Clark snorted at the last thought, his stifled laugh sounding like a half-smothered cough. 

"Finally! Where have you been Clark Kent?" 

"Around." 

"Around? Around as in hanging around Luthor's Elisnore." 

"God I can't believe we're only half way through vacation and you've read Hamlet!" Clark said, grasping at straws, desperate to change the subject. 

"I'm impressed Clark. Cliff notes?" 

"No. Lex loves the play, knows all of Hamlet's monologues," Clark shrugged, trying not remember how Lex had thrown his head back, the movement and the pale neck, inviting. 

He'd wanted to lick across Lex's adam's apple. Almost felt his feet moving, almost pushed open the turret room door that was ajar and walked in. At that moment, as Clark had wondered if Lex's skin would taste salty, or if it would just be warm against his mouth, he'd fled. 

"So you've been seeing a lot of Lex then?" Chloe asked innocently. 

Clark sniggered, swallowed hard and nodded. God sometimes he wished Chloe didn't have such good timing. 

"Yeah I guess you could say so." He nodded and jumped up heading for the counter. "Want me to get you something to eat Chloe?" 

"No, I'm fine." Chloe said gazing at Clark perceptively. 

Pulling his t-shirt and checked shirt out of his jeans, Clark made his way to the counter, hoping that the bulge in his jeans wasn't blindingly obvious. Lana finished serving coffee to another customer and turned her attention to Clark, smiling sweetly. 

"Clark, so is it a date?" she teased gently. 

"What?" Clark looked over his shoulder at Chloe and turned back to Lana. 

She stood behind the counter, sliding her dark hair behind her ear, smiling as she always did and he felt nothing. The heart-thumping tension he'd had to fight had disappeared. Yes, Lana was pretty. Yes, she had a kind heart and a warm smile but she didn't glow. She didn't have layers and shadows; she didn't make Clark feel as if her smiles were reserved just for him. She never had. 

"No Lana, Chloe and I are just hanging out." 

"You know Clark, not everyone who is interested in someone is prepared to wait forever." 

Clark vaguely registered that Lana's words were a dig at the obvious crush he'd had for as long as he could remember, and yet, all he could think about was Lex. Lex, who'd always had time for him, who'd always valued his opinion and who, in the last week had looked at him as if he were the most precious work of art he'd ever seen. Lex, who looked at him as if he had been sculpted by Michaelangelo or painted by Da Vinci. 

Lex was, God Lex was interested. Clark's knees felt weak. Lex was painting his portrait because he was interested, in him. Lex was drawing him just like he'd painted Jason. Clark waited for some feeling of shock or revulsion to fell him. As he stood there waiting memories of the last few days swam around him. Lex in jeans. Lex with a pen in his mouth pacing back and forth in front of him. Lex on his knees shaking his ass to the sound of a dance beat as he sketched. Lex smiling down at him as he awoke and stretched out on the sofa. 

Turning on his heel Clark headed over to Chloe. He jammed his fist into his pocket and pulled out a couple of crumpled dollars. 

"Chloe, I'm sorry but I forgot I have a thing." Clark stammered and fled, heading home. 

He ran through the golden fields of corn, blindly. 

Lex was interested in him, like that. Lex wanted to kiss him and touch him and maybe someday make love to him. Hot shivers raced up Clark's spine at the thought. He slowed his pace and stopped, standing alone in the centre of crop stalks. Lex was so interested that he'd laid down on the sofa after Clark had left and touched himself. 

Groaning, his fingers weak and trembling, Clark pulled open the zipper on his jeans. He fumbled with his boxer shorts and then thankfully, his hot, slick, aching flesh slid into his palm. He tightened his fingers, threw his head back, groaned loudly and came, spilling his spunk over his fingers. The musky, tangy smell drifted up around him. In a daze, Clark brought his hand to his lips and licked tasting his seed. He groaned, wiped his hand awkwardly on the corn stalks that stood swaying around him and quickly zipped himself up. 

He wanted Lex. He was gay. Alien and gay. 

Nervous laughter welled and turned into tears. His breath hitched and Clark sat down in the middle of the cornfield and wept. 

He couldn't go back tomorrow. He couldn't not. 

* * *

'Now you see him, now you don't' Lex thought crazily as he looked up from the easel and found that Clark had vanished. 

Gone. 

One moment he'd been lying on the sofa in his usual position and the next, the dark-haired man-child who had become his inspiration and muse, had vanished. The dust sheet lay abandoned, in a crumpled heap, on the sofa cushions. Lex looked around him and stifled the urge to giggle. Okay, there was no way that Clark could have gotten up off the sofa and left the room without Lex having heard him. And he could hardly have flown out of the window something about his final thought jarred Lex. 

He looked up. 

His heartbeat thumped, skittered and threatened to stall. 

There, floating high above the sofa, his legs still crossed at the ankle, was Clark. Clark, in all his nude aroused glory, his hard-on curved, pink, and bobbing against his taut muscular belly. Clark was floating, drifting slightly, his chest rising and falling as he breathed deeply. 

Lex swallowed the laughter that welled up inside him, wondering when his anger would rise to the fore. He slapped himself mentally, knowing that the fact that Clark was floating should have been all he was noticing, all he was focused on. Instead his gaze was drawn back to Clark's curved erection. The domed head of the boy's cock was peeking out of an uncut foreskin. He should have been furious. Instead his rebellious imagination was busy wondering what, or who, Clark was dreaming about. Then again the object of his lust, affection and, God help him, love, was sixteen and if Lex's adolescence was anything to go by, a walking hard-on. 

Lex's sighed, laughing slightly and walked over towards the sofa. He looked up at the breathtaking view and taking a breath called out firmly. 

"Clark. Clark!" 

It was surreal watching the boy float above him. Surreal and liberating. He had hit Clark, had slammed into him at over 60mph and had driven over the bridge hurtling towards his death. 

"Clark." 

A sharp intake of breath was the only indication that Clark had woken. It was followed swiftly by a gasp before the boy hovered and the fell sharply, landing back on the sofa with a loud thud that jarred the couch. 

"Clark, you okay?" Lex asked, reaching out tentatively. He rested his hand against the boy's shoulder and felt him tremble. "Clark, it's OK. I know you're a mutant it's OK." 

"What?" Clark turned swiftly and horror struck blue eyes stared up at him. "Lex what are you talking about?" 

"Your sleep aviation skills." 

"My what?" Clark's voice was shaky. 

"Clark you were floating." Lex said firmly, staring at Clark daring him to admit it, to admit anything, everthing. 

"No, I" Clark stammered. 

"Bullshit! Fucking bullshit! Clark I saw you. You going to tell me I was high on paint fumes? That it was a dream, or that it was delayed trauma?" The anger that Lex had thought was dormant, raced through his veins chilling his blood. He shuddered. "Lie to me Clark. I dare you." 

Lex's voice was steel. Cold dead. Lex stood still in the centre of the room and waited for the summer days to be decimated by the winter of lies. 

"I can't. I can't tell you." Clark's voice was thick with tears. 

"Get out. Get your clothes and go!" Lex's voice shook with suppressed rage. He clenched his trembling hand into a fist and tried to tell himself that he'd survived worse. He'd survive this pain too. 

"Lex?" Clark's voice trembled. He got up off the sofa and reached out in vain. 

Lex stepped back, out of his reach, his body language a viable slap in the face. 

"God Lex, I can't tell you!" Clark stammered. "You don't understand. I want to, I do but I can't!" 

"I understand full well Clark. I'm not to be trusted." Lex spat the words out with venomous rage. 

"No. Lex it's not that. I, I promised." 

"Your parents." 

"My parents." The word choked Clark, he coughed and a sob caught in his throat. Hot tears streamed down his face. "I'm different Lex. I don't belong, anywhere? Do you understand?" Clark asked his voice laced with raw desperation. 

"You think I don't know what it's like to be different Clark?" Lex's tone was razor sharp, cutting in it's derision. 

"Lex" Clark sobbed his breath hitching. "Lex, I'm not talking about being gay, although God knows I may be that too," Clark sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. 

Lex's heart trembled at the boyish vulnerable movement. 

" I'm really different, other alien." Clark choked on the last word and for a moment Lex thought the boy might retch. 

"The pod." Lex breathed the words and moved to hold Clark as the boy's knees gave way and he sank back down onto the sofa. 

He marvelled at the fact that Clark turned, burying this head in the crook of Lex's neck, seeking warmth and reassurance. 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Clark's cries were a litany. 

"No Clark. I'm sorry." Lex cupped Clark's cheek and turned the boy's face towards him. "I shouldn't have pushed. I shouldn't have pushed." 

They hugged tightly. Lex cried silently, his tears falling into Clark's dark thick hair. Shaking, silently Lex pressed his lips against the crown of Clark's head and wondered where they'd go from here. 

The scientist in him was itching to ask Clark a barrage of questions, to study him and capture him in skin cells and strands of DNA, if indeed he even had DNA. The artist in him was itching to kiss away the tears from Clark's eyes and turn back to the canvas. The artist in Lex just wanted to be able to look at the boy and maybe one day, if he was lucky, to love him and be loved back. 

"You think you're gay?" Lex asked, wondering aghast when his mouth had divorced itself from his higher brain functions. 

Clark snorted and giggled against his neck. It felt wet and tickly and then Clark moved, sitting up to look at him. 

"That's it? That's all you want to know?" he asked incredulously. 

"It's the most important thing, no?" Lex asked gently, surprised beyond belief that in that moment he truly meant the words. 

"I" Clark stammered, blushed and stared down at his bare feet. "I saw you, the other day. You were" 

Clark looked up, stared at Lex pointedly and gestured vaguely with his hand. 

"Oh." Lex could feel his ears burning slightly. Taking an in-breath he plunged forth into embarassment: "You saw me wanking." 

"Wanking?" Clark asked 

"Wanking. Spanking the monkey. Tossing off. Jerking off. Masturbating." 

"Yeah." Clark was blushing, yet irony of ironies he hadn't realised he was nude and partly sitting in Lex's lap. 

"Did you like what you saw?" Lex asked, his voice dropping an octave. 

It sounded like rough and warm as if he'd just woken up, nothing like the brittle quality in his earlier painful words that could have sliced them both to shreds. 

"Yes." Clark breathed out shakily. "I did. Liked watching you I mean." He paused and looked at Lex boldly. "I came. Not then, I mean later but" 

Lex watched as a blush spread across Clark's face but the boy didn't turn away, didn't drop his eyes. Clark's eyes darkened, a thoughtful expression taking the place of awkwardness and, just as Lex thought he might get lucky, might get a kiss if Clark leaned in a little, the naked boy on his lap shattered the moment. 

"Lex, how did you know? About the pod in the storm cellar I mean." Clark asked. 

"I didn't know Clark. Not definitively." Lex paused as Clark's previous sentence sank in. "It's in the storm cellar?!" Lex asked surprise lacing this words. 

"Yeah." Clark lowered his head, hiding behind his fringe, awkwardness' red tinge creeping up the back of his neck again. 

"I didn't know Clark, but I did know that you pulled me free of the Porsche. I did know there was no usual way that a young man could have peeled back the roof of my German sports car. And, any time I touched on the subject, you were desperate." The gentleness was back in Lex's tone as he spoke. 

Reaching out gently he let his fingers touch the soft strands of Clark's hair. 

"Desperate?" Clark asked, turning to lean into Lex again. 

"For me to stop digging. To bury the past in that blasted field and pretend that Smallville's oddities don't exist." 

Thinking back to the moment Jonathan Kent had thrust his cheque back at him, as if the envelope contained a lethal virus, Lex felt his heart clench. "Clark you'd better get dressed." 

"You still want me to go?" Clark asked quietly. 

"No. God no, but I think that we should continue this when you're dressed. Don't you?" Lex asked cupping Clark's cheek once again and tilting the boys face so that he could stare into his wide, clear eyes. 

"Don't know." Clark said petulantly, his lower lip pouting, in what was, to Lex, an all too seductive manner. "Don't you want to finish the portrait Lex?" 

"Of course I do. I just thought you might be a little more comfortable dressed." Lex swallowed, as he laid his hand against Clark's lower back. The rubbed his thumb against the warm smooth skin in what he hoped were soothing circles and tried very hard to ignore Clark's evident nudity and proximity. 

It was easier to ignore the fact that he'd excavated that blasted field and stuck Hamilton right in the middle of what was turning out to be Alexander's Gordian knot. 

"I'm comfortable." Clark said cheekily. On an in-breath, he blurted out his next question. "Were you um, hard because of me? Because I was nude, I mean." 

Lex laughed. "Yes and no and yes. I do find you very attractive Clark, hell you're beautiful" 

"No, I'm" the teen injected. 

"Yes, you are." Giving in to impulse, Lex leaned down and kissed Clark on the bridge of his nose. "Clark you are beautiful, you have a beautiful body but I doubt that's why I got hard." 

"Huh?" 

"You arouse me because you're you. Because you're funny and have a heart bigger than Texas and" 

"God I could have a heart that big, couldn't I?" Clark asked suddenly. 

A burst of laughter welled up, bubbling forth from Lex. "It was a metaphor Clark. You're a big boy, but you're not that big." 

Lex's wicked grin dissolved into a perplexed stare. "Don't you know if your heart is larger than a human heart?" Focused, Lex wrinkled his brow. 

"No. Don't know much." Clark shrugged. "Just that my parents must not have wanted me. If I had parents that is. Maybe the ship was an egg, maybe I was hatched." 

"Clark, don't ever think you weren't wanted." The words were firm. The kiss against the boys temple, soft. 

"Lex, you er" 

"Want you? Yes. In my life, in my future." Lex shrugged, the words 'in my bed' resounding loudly between them. "But above all I want your friendship and your trust." 

"Tell me." Clark commanded. 

Shifting, they lay on the sofa, with the dust sheet draped over Clark's lower body. Lex ran his fingers through Clark's hair. He exhaled, tried to control his sudden, speeding pulse, and began to talk. 

* * *

Clark shifted on the sofa, his ear pressed to Lex's, now thumping heartbeat. Lex was worried. A voice in Clark's head, which sounded ominously like his father, was ranting about the fact that he should never have told Lex anything. Ranting that whatever Lex had kept from him could not be good. He slammed a mental door on his parents' conscience and focused on the feel of Lex's fingers as they slowly caressed his forearm. 

Somehow Clark knew that the comfort derived from the movement was more for Lex's own sake than for his. Reaching down with a slightly clammy palm, Clark carefully slid his fingers into Lex's slender hand and squeezed once in reassurance. 

"I was a sickly kid before the meteors almost flattened me." Lex spoke calmly, in a measured tone. 

Clark scrambled to keep up, astounded with what Lex was prepared to reveal. 

"Maybe that's why I had to know. After the meteors hit, I lost my hair and all my childhood ailments." Lex faltered slightly as Clark rubbed his thumb across the back of his hand. Smiling down at Clark, he continued. "Exiled to Stowe, I could suddenly do sports, climb trees, run, shout, fight, hell I could even laugh deeply. I could breathe Clark, truly breathe for the first time in my life. Though, truthfully that might have been because my father was across the ocean." 

Clark smiled at the sardonic wit and nodded, waiting for Lex to continue. 

"Coming back here and living in mutantville" Lex paused, as if he was searching for the words. "That day on the bridge I would have died. Should have died. Instead, here I was, am, living in a bad episode of the X-Files. I had to know what happened to me. Then and now. I had to know why the first friend I'd made, since I'd been ordered back to this Mickey Mouse continent, was obviously lying to me. So I er..." 

Clark twisted slightly so that he was lying on his belly. He watched Lex run his hand over his bald head, close his eyes and rub the bridge of his nose. Some how the pain on Lex's face was enough to distract him from the sensation of the slight roughness of denim, and the hard firmness of another thigh pressing against his own. He felt his cock twitch and bit his lip to distract him from the fact that he was naked, lying between Lex's thighs. 

"Clark. I hired Hamilton to experiment on the fucking meteor rocks." 

"I know, you already told me that, remember?" Clark said, wondering where this was leading. 

"Yeah but I never stopped the experiments, never terminated his funding. I didn't know about the Nicodemus flower, Clark. I swear. It was his own 'Little Shop of Horrors." 

Clark froze, his thumb stilling its circular motion. "And now?" 

"Now?" Lex asked, his eyes open and full of blinding fear. 

"Now, after this," Clark gestured to the lack of space between them. "After today?" 

"I have to figure out how to disarm him." Lex sighed deeply and ran his hand nervously over his bald head again. "Clark," Lex closed his eyes, swallowed and continued. "I found a metallic alloy that probably belongs to you. Looks like an outsize fifty pence coin." He breathed in. "Worse still it's disappeared." 

"It's in the ship Lex." Clark said gently, moving so that his hand lay flat against Lex's heart. It was still beating double-time. 

"In the ship? How Nixon. That fucking creep. Oh God what am I going to do with Roger Nixon?" 

In answer to Clark's questioning gaze Lex continued. "He's the editor at the Inquisitor. You think he'd want to run the British Sun or the Daily Mirror?" 

"Buy him off Lex?" Clark smiled. 

"What did you think I did with enemies and liabilities? Then again, your dad probably thinks I have hit men on retainer, paid out of an untraceable bank account in Switzerland." 

Clark snorted and grinned. "I doubt it. So we have Nixon and Hamilton to worry about?" 

"And my father." Lex stilled, a rueful half smile touched his lip. 

"Your father?" 

"Yeah, he's hoping my er, preference is a phase. Hence Victoria." 

"Victoria?" Clark asked, unaware that he'd spoken the woman's name, tingeing it with loathing. 

"My father decided to elucidate my failings as a man." Lex said bitterly. "God, I don't even know why that bothers me. She was so not my type." 

"You have a type? Of woman?" Clark knew he sounded vulnerable, knew Lex could hear how fragile he felt. He also knew that he'd clenched his fist tightly in Lex's lilac t-shirt. He loosened his grip slightly and hoped he hadn't ripped the material. 

"Not really. Have a thing for dark-eyes, broad shoulders, long muscular legs and kissable mouths though." Lex's words were warm and humour laden. 

"K, kissable mouths?" Clark's voice shook slightly as he found himself unable to look away from Lex's mouth. 

"Uh huh. I love kissing Clark. Love to flirt with my tongue." 

"Oh God." Clark groaned and dropped his head against Lex's chest. 

His fringe hid his heated face. He breathed in, smelling the scent of faded aftershave and the underlying scent of slightly sweaty Lex. Long, agile fingers touched his cheek and then he was leaning up as Lex leaned in. As he felt Lex's breath against his mouth, Clark giggled nervously. 

"Ssh" He felt the sound and then firm lips were pressed against his. 

Resting, feeling, kissing. Lex drew back slightly and then leaning down again pressed his lips back to Clark's startled mouth. A wet warm lick from Lex's tongue and Clark found it easy to part his lips, easy to let the deft strokes dance into his mouth, easy to relax his jaw and try sliding his tongue against Lex's. Someone groaned and Clark felt Lex's hand clutch at his bicep. Lex's hand was on the back of his neck, playing with his hair, tilting his head slightly. The kiss was deeper. As Lex's tongue licked over Clark's teeth inside his bottom lip, Clark shuddered and felt a bolt of lust race down to his fast-hardening cock. 

"Lex." The breathy word came from him as Lex pulled back from the kiss and nipped at his bottom lip playfully. 

"What do you want Clark? Tell me." 

Lex's voice was rough and made Clark think of stubble, of Lex painting first thing in the morning, rubbing his unshaven cheek as he concentrated. It was an intimate moment. Just as intimate as having Lex's tongue in his mouth. Oh God, Lex had sucked on his tongue. 

"Tell me." Lex demanded. 

Clark started as the sound made his cock throb against Lex's denimed thigh. 

"Anything, everything," he panted, watching Lex's fingers curled possessively around his upper arm. 

Lex laughed and leaned in to kiss Clark, licking the inside of Clark's mouth as if he wanted to taste every part of him. "Let's start with something simple shall we?" 

With that, Lex sat up slightly, and pulled of his t-shirt. Clark reached out tentatively and touched the pale skin. Lex's chest was lightly dusted with freckles, yet his skin was almost translucent in its pallor. 

"It's okay Clark. You can touch me." Lex reached down and unzipped his jeans, the rasping sound loud in the room. "Lift up," he said, nudging Clark with his knee. Clark sat back on his haunches and watched as his Lex wriggled out of his jeans and boxer briefs, pushing them down below his knees. 

"Lex" Clark breathed the name as he found his eyes drawn to his friend's stiffening cock. 

It was just as he remembered from the brief glimpse he'd seen that day. Curved, slender and as elegant as the rest of Lex's body. The curls around Lex's engorging sex were reddish brown, stark against the milky white skin of his belly. 

"I don't know" Clark started. 

"You don't have to know." Lex reached out and taking Clark's wide hand in his own, he led it to his shoulder. "Just relax and touch me. Just relax and let me touch you. Clark, anything you don't like, tell me. Likewise if anything that makes you uncomfortable. Pleasure is meant to be fun." 

Terrified to press too hard, to bruise, to hurt Lex in anyway, Clark kept his touch light; he saw Lex shudder and lie back, shifting into a more comfortable position. It was natural to follow, to lie down in much the same position they'd been in all morning. As he did, he exhaled in a groan. He could feel Lex's crinkly pubic hair against his own throbbing erection, and somehow that one simple thing was wildly exciting. 

"God Lex!" Clark groaned, found his head buried in the crook of Lex's neck again and reached out to kiss the soft flesh. He stuck his tongue out cautiously, licking slightly and tried to kiss Lex's skin with a partially open mouth. 

A husky giggle was his reward. "Got vampiric tendencies I need to know about?" Lex asked. 

"No." Clark shook his head and laughed. "You feel good." He could feel the heat spread across his face, and knew he was blushing. 

"So do you," Lex said reaching down to cup his hand around one of Clark's butt cheeks in a sudden bold move. Clark jumped. Lex pinched him lightly, and then rubbed his palm in soothing circles across Clark's lower back. "That good?" he asked prompting softly. 

"Yeah oh yeah," Clark panted. Lex was solid beneath him, solid and warm. His skin was soft, his mouth, oh god his mouth. Lex's mouth was kissing across his shoulder and down his chest. His agile tongue licked across his nipple. Wet, warm and the cold as Lex blew across the pink nubbin that hardened. Clark's cock hardened even more and with a low moan he shifted his hips. Suddenly fingers and a hand were clasping his hot, sweaty flesh. 

"Oh God Lex! Oh yes, please, please touch me." The begging words fell easily from Clark's kiss-swollen lips. 

"I am touching you, love." Lex said. Twisting slightly, he brought their groins into alignment. "Welcome to the Princeton rub." 

Head thrown back against the side of the sofa, Clark closed his eyes, clutched at Lex and lost himself. He could feel the hot, damp hardness of another cock rubbing against his. Could feel the exciting throbbing, feel his own blood pooling, swelling his sex. More than that he could feel the warmth of Lex's body, the strength in the arms that held him and the strength in the hands that stoked and caressed him. Lex was kissing him. Kissing his mouth. Kissing his neck, cupping his ass and thrusting, rhythmically, faster. A cry was wrenched from Clark's throat as he felt his cock spasm. 

"I'm going to come," he panted, "gonna come. Lex please, gotta come." 

A knowledgeable hand reached down and squeezed his balls gently. Panting. Yelling. Clark felt himself come, spurting across Lex's belly. God, he was coming on Lex's cock. Dizzy, he felt kisses pressed to his temple. 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he babbled. God he'd ruined it. Come too soon. 

"What are you sorry about?" Lex asked with a kiss. 

"I c, came." Clark shuddered at the feel of his seed between them. 

"I wanted you to come." Lex leaned down and slid his tongue between Clark's lips. Kissed and pulled back with a grin. "Wanted to feel your sticky hot come on my cock Clark." Then Lex was leading his trembling hand to his own hard flesh. Clark felt it throb wetly in his hand, felt Lex's hand close over his and then amid kisses, their hands moved together in slow fisting movements. Lex came with a breathy groan that was Clark's name, his head thrown back, his eyes shut. 

Moments later, he'd slid into Clark's arms and was lying across the broad chest. Propping himself up on his hands he looked down at Clark. 

"You freaked?" 

"We had sex." Clark said, his head spinning with the realisation. 

"Yes we did." Lex said, sounding a little saddened. High on the experience, on the feelings and on the endorphins, Clark didn't notice. 

"I made love to someone, well okay not someone, to you, er with you. I mean we did make love, right Lex? If we didn't, you know." The all-encompassing hand movement was back. 

"Yes Clark, we made love." 

Clark hadn't noticed when Lex had stopped smiling but he noticed when the rare gift shone in his direction again. 

They lay there in the morning sunshine and suddenly Clark started giggling. 

"What?" Lex said, his fingers tapping against Clark's lips. 

"You're lying here half naked with your jeans round your ankles." 

"Yes. And?" Lex asked with a raised eyebrow. 

"Doesn't it seem a little um, teenage?" Clark asked, suddenly worried that Lex would get bored of him. Lex was older, sophisticated cool. Lex had loved Jason. 

"I had some of the happiest days of my life in my teens Clark. Jason would have liked you." 

Clark felt his heart freeze and plummet. 

"You miss him?" He held his breath and tried to remember how to breathe. 

"I used to. I let go of Jason a long time ago. The problem was I also let go of myself." 

"I have you to thank Clark. You showed me how lost I am." Leaning down Lex was pressing a kiss against his lips again and unspoken words were exchanged as tongues flirted. 

* * *

Six Years Later: 

Holding a styrofoam cup in his leather gloved hand, Lex pushed the glass door open. He stood at the top of the descending staircase and surveyed his kingdom. Well okay so it was Adrian's kingdom that was being loaned out to him, but everything that was truly precious to him was being carefully removed from packing crates. 

Walking down the carpeted staircase, Lex carefully made his way into the centre of the bright sunny room and stood sipping his mocha latte. 

"Alex!" The cry of greeting spilled forth from above and turning his head Lex watched Adrian dash down the unobtrusive spiral staircase in the far corner of the room. 

"That's where you calculate how much commission you can leech off me?" Lex asked, titling his head towards the upper partitioned wall. The grin on his face took all the sting out of his words. 

"That too. It's where I scheme to take over the art world." Adrian Campell Black pushed the hair out of his face and hugged Lex warmly. "Couldn't stay away?" 

Lex shrugged, swallowing what was threatening to be a sheepish grin. "Once a control freak" 

"I know, I know and it is your first major show." 

"Didn't help that some fool leaked a story to the media about how Alexander J. Luthor is the art world's hot new discovery." Lex smiled ruefully and walked over to a large packing crate that was being pried open. 

"You are." Adrian said, moving to stand next to Lex quietly. "We wouldn't be representing you otherwise." 

"Once I decided that erotic art was passe_, when I decided not to emulate Ritts and Weber on canvas and turned to this, I never thought the work would be sought after." 

"Sought after? You call Elton John clamouring for you work, sought after?" 

"Adrian, you know full well you're exaggerating." 

Lex placed the half-full styrofoam cup on the nearest table and stalked over to the nearest open packing crate. Canvases were being placed in frames. Frames, placed against the wall. Standing stock-still, Lex tried to let go of the work in front of him. 

"Going to miss your babies?" Adrian asked. 

Shaking his head, Lex turned his concentration away from the canvases. 

"Not my babies Adrian." 

Clark was his baby, although Lex would probably kill someone with a palette knife before he admitted it. Clark and the cocker spaniel puppy he'd been given this past Christmas by the closest thing he'd ever have to in-laws. The art being hung in front of his eyes was his evolution. 

Stretched out on canvases that spanned the room like a roll of camera film were scenes from love, from life. Breakfasts in bed, and showers behind frosted glass, all starring same sex couples. He hadn't painted torsos, he'd painted light and moments. A child's hand slipping into his father's on the first day of school. Sharing the paper. Laughter and grapefruit segments. Some paintings were clear, some blurry seen through laughter and tears. 

His favourite though wasn't hanging here today. It hung over his bed at home. There, a life-size black and white charcoal drawing of Clark posed nude on a leather sofa watched over him. 

Broad hands slid around him and Lex leaned back against familiar thighs, resting his head against a heart that beat in time with his. Clark. 

"Hi love," Lex said, focused on a framer hanging a painting. 

"Hi love." Clark leaned down and kissed his preoccupied lover. "You happy?" 

"Yes. No. I don't know." Lex twisted in Clark's arms. "Why did I decide to paint scenes of communication and domesticity again?" 

"You said something profound about artists portraying the lack in the world as well as being a reflection of it." Clark leaned in and kissed the back of Lex's bald head. 

"Next time I say something profound, shut me up." Lex leaned up and kissed Clark. "So do you think they're coming?" Lex asked nervously. 

"Milto phoned again to ask if we wouldn't rather he stayed in a hotel, Jessica left a message with her hotel details, Joel e-mailed" 

"Your parents Clark. Are your parents coming?" 

Clark threw his head back and laughed. "Be happy you didn't decide to go with a nude theme. Mom called to say with their flight number." 

Moving out of his lover's embrace, Lex walked over to the young woman who was opening a small cardboard box and taking out hardback books. 

"Oh good, the brochure's finally back from the printer." Lex picked up the black, material bound book and leafed through the pages. 

He looked up to see Clark lean back against the white reception desk and picked up his now lukewarm coffee. He took a large sip and stood watching Lex. 

"What?" 

"Nothing." Clark shrugged, then smiled. "Thank you." 

Lex smiled. "Whatever for?" 

"The everyday moments you don't share with the world." 

**THE END**

A/N 1 - I don't know if it's cannon or fannon but somewhere I read on line that Lex went to Stowe (seriously upmarket English public school - that means private BTW) If this is the case it is _beyond_ me that Lex would have gone through, at the very least six years, of an English boarding school and emerged friendless. Totally beyond me. In my reality he didn't :-) 

A/N 2 - I also don't think that 21 going on 22 is that old. Lex is still evolving and I wanted to show that. If Clark is 15 going on 16 then he's truly a boy and not yet a young man. I wanted to show that too. This is the end result. 

A/N 3 - Last but by no means ever least I owe gratitude and thanks to Caro. I am blessed with her friendship and have been through fandoms and years. I thank her for her friendship above all but also for her excellent beta skills and for not braining me with a brick over certain recurring spelling mistakes. You rock chica! 

A/N 4 - A certain mention in the epilogue is nod to Orithain and Rina's newest character in "Snow Angels". 


End file.
